The Londonderry sifter. (South Londonderry, Vt.) 1883-19??, 1887-10-27
TOMATO CANNERIES.
Progress of the Tomato From
Field to Consumer.
One Of the Great Industries of
New Jersey.

What the peach orchards are to Della
ware the tomato fields are so much to
Salem and Cumberland counties, says
letter from Salem, N. j., to the New
York Times, The tomatoes are picked
in the regular Delaware peach baskets
and loaded on wagons purposoly ar
ranged for the purpose. The farmer
takes the load to the can house and is
met by a "wagon MASTER" who assigns
him place in the procession and he
puts his wagon in it. If he is prudent
and industrious farmer he unhitches his
horses and returns to his farm with his
team, for he can, in all probability go
home, gather another load, and return
to the canning house before his first load
is wanted at the "scalder."
Long lines of farm wagons loaded
with this fruit may be seen around
each of the great establishments. The
farmers in most cases have gone home
and left their wagons unguarded. They
are perfectly safe. Tomatoes are so
abundant that not even the street gamin
will molest them. Som etimes "a hours
pass between the time a wagonload is
delivered to the wagon master and
its delivery to the scalder. The scalder
is the primary machine in the canning
factory, unless the scales be classed as a
part of the factory. The scales are in
the street, but the register is inside of
the office. The farmer, who, by the
grace of the wagon master has the next
turn at the scalder, is told to pull his
wagon on to the scales, and the
wagon, basket, and man are all weighed
together. Then he is told to "pull
up" to the scalder. This scalder is
large box tub, made square, into which
there is turned steam pipe by which the
water may be kept hot. Inside of the
scalder and working on hinges there is a
half round iron basket that will hold the
tomatoes. This basket is so arranged
that man with rope running through a
block can lower the tomatoes into scald-
ing water or lift them out at will. Usu-
ally two baskets are put into the scalder
at time, and by the time the farmer
can walk the four or five steps backward
to the wagon and return these two bas-
kets of tomatoes have been scalded and
by movement of the rope sent into
tubs, and it is said that they are washed
at the same time that they are scalded; +;
but, as the water in which til ey are
scalded is generally so muddy as to
make it impossible to see tomato a
hairs breadth under the surface l rather
question the cleaning process.
Some of the factories are moro cleanly
than others, but there is not factory
that has so far overcome the difficulty
of washing. And so far as l have seen,
that is the feature of the packing that
is not perfect, excepting that none of the
factories wash their cans before using
them. The women who Skin" the to-
matoes might come into the factory
with unclean hands, but in five minutes
work the hand of the tidicst and most
cleanly woman in the place would be no
cleaner than those of the most untidy, so
rapid is the action of the tomato acid in
taking the dirt from the hands. After
the tomatoes have been skinned they
are thrown into buckets, and whenever
woman fills an ordinary water bucket
she is given check which entities her
to or cents. Many women here will
"skin so buckets per day or an hour.
When the baskets are filled a man
throws them into the hopper of ma
chine called ''stuffer." These machines
are usually operated by steam power,
and pressure of the feet sends can
full of tomatoes into can, seldom fail
ing to fill it. To prevent having light
cans, each one as it is taken away from
the ''stuffer' is passed to woman
termed ''finisher,' and she sees that it
is properly filed In several of the fac
tories that / visited there was being
successfully operated machine by
which by the use of unskilled labor the
caps could be soldered to ten cans at one
operation, but most of the caps are SOL
dered by what is commonly known as
club irons, and one cap is finished at a
time. The cans are then put into large
trays made of iron, and these trays,
piled one upon another, are put
into large tubs filled with hot water and
scalded for upward of an hour, when
they are taken out and piled over the
factory floor, and sometimes outdoors,
where they may best be cooled The
next day they are carefully inspected,
and those not properly ''processed" are
taken out and reprocessed.
A few days after the cans have been
corked they are ready for labelling and
packing into cases for shipping. In
many of the larger factories these opera
tions are to be seen at one visit. There
is one canning establishment here in
Salem where preparations were made to
can about 1,sOO, 900 cans, or $50, 900
dozen. That quantity of tomatoes will
sell this season for upward of $3.50, 00O